On the Wind's Breath
by SmashQueen
Summary: A scene for "Intertwined", set before the story. Veil seeks guidance. Prompt fill.


Special thanks to Jazzy_Kandra.

Part of a collection of prompts that I decided to upload by itself.

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She flipped the hood off of her head and stared up and up at the wind worn temple. One hand had been lost to the centuries and the entrance to the temple itself had collapsed in on itself, yet despite that, the figure of a majestic woman was still as clear as the sky.

Hidden away deep within the wasteland, she had only ever rumors and stories of the near mythical holy ground. It was said that in millennia past, the dead of the once-united tribe would travel to the temple to lay rest their deceased. From there, the Goddess of the Sands would take the departed sisters to the world beyond.

Now, it was a lost ruin to the ravages of time.

And her last hope.

She trotted her mare up to the edge of the stone plateau and dismounted. The slope up to the small platform was small and unstable, the steps long gone. It was no real obstacle to her though, not compared to actually finding the temple's location in the first place. She needn't even a running start to climb it. She hoisted herself up the four feet and she was standing before the entrance proper.

She would have preferred to enter the Temple of Spiritual Blessings, but this would have to do.

She knelt, bowing her head and clasping her hands together. She closed her eyes.

Then opened her heart to the heavens.

"O Goddess of the Sands," she began, "please hear me. I have come far from the safety of my sisters' village to seek guidance. My journey has led me here because I have no one else to turn to." She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and let open the floodgates. "O goddess, my Ruuya has been having dangerous thoughts lately. She has confided in me treacherous plans and… She will surely die if she carries through with them.

"I am torn between my duties and loyalty to my sisters...and my love for her. We are taught unity of sisters above all else, and that only our loyalty towards King Ganondorf should be held in the same fierceness. We are taught love for others comes after, but she brings a light to my life I hadn't before!"

Veil's voice shook, her control wavering. "With Ruuya I can stand the desert heat and icy nights. I can take the late shifts knowing there's a warm body waiting for me. Sometimes barely awake. I can fall asleep to her voice and imagine all these...foreign stories in my head. She has a way of making the most boring story come to life. I can share stupid ideas with her and not be judged with how crazy they become. With Ruuya...I'm free to laugh.

"But..." Veil swallowed. "She's the village pariah. Our sisters don't dare say it to my face anymore, but I know they think little of her. I know they steal her things far more often any anybody else's. I know what they call her when my back is turned. A liar, an attention hog, a Hylian waif. Worse things. They'll never say traitor though. They know better than that.

"My Ruuya's clever though. She knows how to hit them harder without being caught. Cilna woke up next to a pile of horse waste last week." Veil couldn't help grinning. "I still don't know where she got the sleeping herbs.

"They..." She paused. "They don't understand. Her visions are frightening but not even her mother acknowledges as anything but nightmares. Her dreams are laughed at and ignored. I used to laugh, too." Veil's voice was small. Ashamed. "I didn't really believe they were visions until...until I found her seizing. I thought I was going to scare a couple after watch duty, but instead...I found her, alone. That wasn't normal. She doesn't come out of her visions as severely anymore, but they haven't become better. She has been blessed but the others don't see it. They refuse to. To have a seer would be a boon, but her visions go against all we have been taught. If they ever admit she is right, then they would have to admit that all we have ever known is a lie.

"O goddess I beseech you, what should I do? Do I betray my sisters and help my...my silly bookworm of a girlfriend" – she chuckled sadly – "or do I betray her trust and give her over to the elders for punishment? I have tried reasoning with her, but she is adamant. She wants to leave us – to leave our village behind and travel to the forbidden land in search of answers she says our elders won't give her. I know they won't. They never will." Hot tears fell down her face. "I want what's best for my family, but..."

Veil scrambled for words. She hadn't expected to say so much, to lay her heart bare before the goddess, but was done was done.

She had nothing else to spill.

"What should I do?"

The wind blew through her hair, whipping sand and dust through the strands and against her forehead. It blew past her, to the east, twisting and swirling until it formed something like an arrow. An answer to prayer?

"I can't," she replied.

The wind blew harsher.

"I'm not..." The wind picked up, the sands flowing faster. "I'm not brave enough to go through with it!"

The admittance shook her to the core. Veil struggled to find words, another reason for her fear, but what was done was done.

The sand fell. The wind settled.

And in the silence, Veil was alone.

/-/

It was two days later that Ruuya was cast out. That a shadow passed over her, that her head sunk low. The others barely spoke with her, leaving her to her sorrow, misery, pain. Her heart wished to follow east.

But her legs would not allow it.


End file.
